


where did I leave that fire?

by stillscape



Series: tumblr prompts collection [8]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, diner owner!betty, firefighter!jug, five times fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 07:57:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15359811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/pseuds/stillscape
Summary: The fifth member of their party also bore the nameJones, and she assumed he must be the chief’s son; they looked so much alike, except that the chief seemed happy to be there and the younger Jones appeared to be ready to murder her. Maybe, she thought, he was just hungry.(or, five times firefighter!Jug met diner owner!Betty)





	where did I leave that fire?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sullypants](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sullypants/gifts).



> Dearest sullypants, I know you are working on a version of firefighter!Jug yourself, but you got me thinking about him, and "[Zero to Sixty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12104355)" cop!Jug, and, well... this happened. I hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> Thanks to village_skeptic for looking this over.

 

 

“It’s one hundred percent perfect,” Veronica said. But then, Veronica would say that. Veronica was both her main investor and her landlord. “You’ve really outdone yourself, Betty.” 

“Don’t say ‘perfect,’” Betty muttered. 

The two women stood on the strip mall sidewalk (it _was_ a strip mall, no matter how often Veronica insisted that SoDale was in fact a “high-end outdoor shopping and lifestyle experience center”) and looked through the floor-to-ceiling glass storefront of Cooper’s Kitchen to its vaguely rustic, retro-charm interior. 

“You’re going to do such great business,” Veronica enthused. 

“Only because Pop’s closed.” 

“Stop sounding so sad about that. I know Pop’s was an institution—”

“He taught me everything I know,” Betty interjected, not for the first time. 

“He did not. Pop Tate never made a Hollandaise in his life, and you know it. But the man deserves his retirement, Betty. And _you_ deserve a shiny new, squeaky clean space for your restaurant, not that vintage neon shoebox in which literally not even the jukebox was up to code.” 

“I know,” Betty said. “This is great, Veronica. Really.” 

And it was. Really. Even if, when she had started envisioning opening her own restaurant, she had always imagined doing so in one of downtown Riverdale’s older brick buildings, like the one next door to her parents’ newspaper. True, the foot traffic wasn’t what it had once been, but it wasn’t like parking in downtown Riverdale had ever been difficult. And those spaces came with the charm already built in. How was one supposed to make a strip mall storefront endearing? Her specialty was breakfast food, not interior decorating. 

(She had somehow never envisioned Pop’s closing down at _all_ , but God only knew how much Pop deserved a quiet retirement. Betty’s restaurant would only be open for breakfast and lunch; she had no idea how Pop had managed twenty-four hours a day.) 

But then the Lodges had finally gotten the SoDale project up and running, years after they’d bought the land on which the Twilight Drive-In had once sat, and Veronica had insisted: one of the two restaurant spaces in the new shopping complex was absolutely, positively reserved for the future Cooper’s Kitchen—at reduced rent, no less. Betty really couldn’t say no. And her cousin Cheryl had ferreted around in her family’s distillery until she’d come up with enough old painted wood to make a maple syrup-themed focus wall. It really was a nice touch. 

(The random log next to the cash register—that, she still wasn’t sure about.) 

“You’re totally ready for tomorrow’s grand opening,” Veronica said. 

Betty wished she shared her best friend’s confidence. She felt good about the uniforms she’d decided on, baby blue shirtdresses with white-tipped lapels. She felt great about the menu. She felt _pretty_ good about her own ability to manage a restaurant. 

She had some concerns about her head cook. But there was really no way around hiring her own sister, not when Polly had two small children to support. 

Back inside her restaurant, she sat at the front table, looking through the window to the newly revitalized Southside Fire Station right across the street as she rolled up silverware in baby blue cloth napkins. A few of the firefighters were outside, washing one of their engines. She couldn’t see them all that clearly, but it was still a nice view. 

The firefighters must have noticed her, too, because a group of five became her very first customers the next morning. Since they were all in uniform, Betty jotted down the names that were embroidered over their shirt pockets as she took their orders; hopefully, _hopefully_ , they’d become regulars. 

“Let me read that back,” she said. She started with the tiny pink-haired woman, Topaz. “Two poached eggs, wheat toast, side of fruit.” She turned next to a man named Fogarty, and said, “Belgian waffle, strawberries, no whipped cream, side of bacon.” Third up was the enormously tall firefighter, the one whose uniform read, inexplicably, _Sweet Pea_. “Breakfast burrito, extra salsa.” Fourth up was the station chief himself, Jones; he nodded as she recited “Short stack combo with sausage patty, scrambled eggs, and hash browns.” 

The fifth member of their party also bore the name _Jones_ , and she assumed he must be the chief’s son; they looked so much alike, except that the chief seemed happy to be there and the younger Jones appeared to be ready to murder her. Maybe, she thought, he was just hungry. 

(He also looked familiar, in a way she couldn’t quite place.) 

“Full stack pancake combo,” she said, “also with sausage patty, scrambled eggs, and hash browns.” 

The younger Jones nodded, sullenly. “And a refill when you get a chance,” he said, pushing his coffee cup forward an inch. 

“Coming right up,” Betty said, smiling at all of them. 

She came back with the carafe as soon as she’d dropped off the order with Polly; the elder Jones tilted his head as he held out his cup for a refill. 

“You Alice’s daughter?” he asked. 

Betty nodded. She didn’t know her mother was acquainted with the Southside fire chief, but it was a small town, so the question was never a totally unexpected one. 

“Spitting image of her,” he said, “especially in that uniform.” 

Betty glanced down at her baby blue shirtdress as Chief Jones took a sip of his refilled coffee. “Funny you should say that,” she said. “She used to work at Pop’s, when she was in high school. I based these uniforms off those old ones.” She’d always preferred the look of her mother’s uniform to the fitted yellow t-shirt and maroon shorts she’d worn when _she_ worked at Pop’s in high school and during the summers she was home from college.

“Well, you got more than her looks and her uniform,” said Chief Jones, nodding at his lifted cup. “Alice always made damn good coffee.” 

Business picked up after that, so she didn’t have much time to stop and chat with their table—but when she came by to drop off the check, she noticed the younger Jones had absolutely demolished his full stack combo. 

“Looks like you enjoyed that,” she said, giving him her best friendly waitress smile. 

He studied her for a moment, then said, simply, “I’d come back.”

  
  
  


The younger Jones came back the very next morning, though this time out of uniform; despite the already-oppressive June heat, he wore jeans and had a backup flannel shirt tied around his waist. He sat alone in a booth in the corner, and, after Betty poured him a cup of coffee, took a laptop out of his bag and began typing. 

The laptop triggered something in her brain, and suddenly, she realized why he looked familiar. What had thrown her off the scent, yesterday and today, was the lack of the gray knit beanie he’d worn constantly back then. 

“You used to be a regular at Pop’s,” she said. “Double cheeseburger, no tomato, no mustard? Onion rings with ranch dressing?” 

“That was it,” he said, raising an eyebrow at the recitation of his usual order. “I’m surprised you remember.” 

“I’m an elephant,” Betty said, cheerfully. “You want the pancake combo again? Or would you like another minute to look at the menu?” 

He opened his mouth to say something, but whatever it was got drowned out by a huge clatter from the kitchens. A moment later, Polly’s head appeared in the pass-through. 

“I’m fine!” she called. “Just dropped some pans on the floor.” 

Betty’s smile faltered slightly. This early on a weekday, she only had one busboy running tables _and_ washing dishes, which meant she’d have to pitch in to wash all those pans. 

“I know the menu says we don’t start serving lunch until eleven,” she said, unsure as to why she was making the offer, “but if you really wanted a cheeseburger now, we could break out the ground beef early.” 

Jones shook his head. “Pancake combo again, please. But with bacon and home fries this time.” 

“Coming right up, Jones.” 

“Jughead,” he said. “‘Jones’ is my dad.” 

“Jughead,” Betty repeated. She wondered why she’d never bothered to ask his name before, when they were teenagers. 

“And no hurry,” he added. “If you need to help out in the kitchen, I mean.” 

“That’s sweet of you,” she said. “I’ll put it in right away, though. You look hungry.” 

He chuckled. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m always hungry.”

  
  
  


“See, you just have to keep whisking really fast while you add the melted butter,” she told Polly. It was their first big rush, the restaurant was busier than it had ever been (in its admittedly very short lifetime), and Betty, overly ambitious as usual, had decided today would be a great day for an eggs Benedict special. Ten minutes before opening was a terrible time to discover that Polly didn’t know how to make a Hollandaise, and Betty simply hadn’t had time to make more than a small batch before things got busy. 

Of _course_ almost everyone was ordering eggs Benedict. 

Polly nodded. She was trying, Betty knew; she was even taking detailed notes. This turned out to be a bad thing, in the end, because Polly had forgotten to keep an eye on the bacon and sausages she had on the griddle… 

…which were now sending huge plumes of black smoke throughout the kitchen. 

Waving her apron in back and forth in front of her face, Betty raced to the stove, turned it off, and dropped an empty tray over the offending meats. Tears stung her eyes, and she coughed. She could hear Polly coming up behind her, and she turned around with a quick, “I’m fine, it’s fine.” 

“You’re sure?” said a male voice. Through the smoke, she saw Jughead Jones, poised and ready with a fire extinguisher in hand. 

“All good,” she assured him. “Wait, what are you doing? No customers in the kitchen, it’s not _safe_ , it’s—” 

“I thought the kitchen was on fire,” he said. 

“And you ran _towards_ it?” 

He gave her a funny look. 

“Right, right. I know,” she said, feeling suddenly stupid. “That’s literally your job.” 

She comped his breakfast that morning—which she might have been tempted to do even if he hadn’t tried to put out her fire, seeing as he was one of the few people who _didn’t_ order the damn eggs Benedict.

  
  
  


Three weeks after Cooper’s Kitchen opened for business, and two weeks after Polly’s grease fire, the fire station held one of its occasional Sunday open houses in honor of the Fourth of July. Sunday was, in fact, only the second of July. 

By then, Betty had gotten to know a lot of the Southside firefighters pretty well. A lot of them stopped by either before or after their shifts. Her mother’s famous pancake recipe had become quite a hit with the firefighters. This was, she assumed, in no small part due to Jughead. By now he was showing up on nearly all of his off days as well as before and after his shifts, always with his laptop, gleefully abusing the bottomless coffee policy. 

(He was usually good conversation in the limited time she had, though, and he always tipped well. So she didn’t really mind.) 

Polly’s five-year-old twins were desperate to go to the open house—especially Juniper, who’d been dying to meet the fire station dog. 

“You take them,” Polly told her, as they sat at their mother’s kitchen table early Sunday morning. 

Betty thought of the Sunday morning brunch rush, and the scant reputation she had to uphold, and how Polly still hadn’t quite mastered an unbroken Hollandaise. “Oh, no, I—” 

“We’re staffed this morning; I can hold down the fort. I don’t think you’ve left the restaurant since it opened, Betty. You can take a few hours off.” 

But, as Veronica kept pointing out, there were literally no other brunch restaurants in Riverdale and she could still turn a profit serving shoe leather. And she really hadn’t left the restaurant for more than twelve hours at a stretch since it opened. 

“I promise not to set anything on fire,” Polly added. 

“Okay, fine,” Betty said. “I still have to swing by the restaurant first, though.”

Polly shot her a funny look. 

“I made all the firefighters a little something as a thank-you,” she said, a little sheepishly. “They’ve been such good customers.” 

“ _All_ the firefighters?” Polly said, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Or just one?” 

Betty felt her cheeks turn almost as red as the cherry pie that waited behind the counter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

She took the twins. 

Fogarty was the first firefighter she saw as they approached the station, and so she made eye contact with him, smiled, and nodded; she couldn’t quite wave, what with having Dagwood’s hand in her left and a pie box tucked under her right arm. But before Fogarty could start towards them, Jughead seemed to notice her. He emerged from the shadows behind one of the fire trucks and said something to Fogarty, who grinned and cuffed him on the shoulder before both men walked over. 

Fogarty was in the usual uniform of blue button-down shirt and matching pants; Jughead wore a white undershirt and yellow fire pants, a pair of suspenders dangling off his shoulders. 

_That shouldn’t work_ , Betty thought; it should not have worked at all, but it did. There was a tattoo on his right shoulder she’d never seen before, and couldn’t quite make out. It looked like a snake in the shape of an S. 

“These are my niece and nephew, Juniper and Dagwood,” she said, by way of explanation. “We were hoping to meet your dog.” 

“Hot Dog will love that,” Jughead said at once. “Fogarty can take them.” 

Betty was still trying not to stare at the tattoo—a bit too obviously, perhaps, because Jughead turned the arm to her as soon as Fogarty led the twins away. 

What she’d thought was a snake in the shape of an S turned out to be a fire hose in the shape of an S. 

“We all have them,” he said. “It’s a station thing. The S is for the Southside, obviously.” 

“Obviously,” Betty said. “I like the little crown on it.” 

He let out a little chuckle. “Topaz’s idea. There’s a stupid joke about me being the fire prince, since my dad’s the chief.” 

“Makes sense,” Betty said, even though it didn’t. 

“Don’t suppose you have any tattoos, Cooper?” 

She laughed. “I’m twenty-five, and my mother would still kill me if I came home with one. I do have this pie for the station, though,” she added, and immediately chastised herself for the awkward segue. “I assume that’s what you came over here to see.” 

Two piercing blue eyes met hers. “You’re not wrong,” he said. “Well, come on. Better take it to the kitchen. I want to make sure I get a piece before anyone else notices it’s here.” 

Once in the fire station’s kitchen, he cut two pieces—one normal size, one much larger—plopped them both on paper plates, and handed her the smaller one. 

“Oh, no,” she said, holding up a hand. “I made this for—” 

“Wait a sec.” Jughead heated up both pieces in the microwave, then dug around in the kitchen’s freezer and produced a carton of vanilla ice cream. 

“Jughead, it’s nine o’clock in the morning,” she said, when he handed her what was now warm cherry pie a la mode. 

“What’s your point? Eat it before the ice cream melts,” he said, and so she did. 

When their both their paper plates had been scraped clean and thrown in the trash, she turned to Jughead, intending to inform him that she really ought to go find her niece and nephew, and found him staring intently at her lips. 

“You’ve got…” 

He stepped close to her, gently swiped a thumb across the corner of her mouth, and then sucked it gently. 

“Can’t let any of that cherry go to waste,” he said, half a smile playing over his lips. He looked like he was about to add a thought, but at that moment, Fogarty and the twins burst into the kitchen, both children shrieking with excitement over getting to pet the station sheepdog. 

She thought about Jughead’s thumb for the rest of the day… and well into the night, too.

  
  
  


The next morning, she slung a stack of pancakes down in front of Jughead and said, “You know, you’re always here.” 

He looked up from his laptop. “I am not.” 

“You absolutely are,” she said. “Practically every minute we’re open that you’re not at work.” The words seemed to hang in the air, an accusation she hadn’t meant to make, and she quickly added, “I don’t mind, of course. You’re always welcome here. Just—what do you do when you’re not working or writing?” 

“Honestly? Not a lot,” he admitted. 

“Oh.” Betty wasn’t sure what kind of answer she had expected, really, but it wasn’t that one. 

Unlike most days, Jughead stayed only couple of hours. 

Betty locked up that afternoon around three, as usual, and returned to her car only to find someone leaning rather insouciantly against the driver’s side door. 

“Jughead?” 

“I’m not doing anything,” he said. Despite the relaxed pose, he seemed unusually nervous. “Want to do it with me?” 

“Yes,” she said, at once. “Now, though?” 

“Why not now?” 

“Because I’m covered in grease stains and I smell like the inside of a deep fryer?” 

She had moved closer and closer to her car, and now Jughead stood up straight, studying her face intensely.

“What?” she asked. 

He slid his hands behind her ears, tipped her chin up ever so gently, and kissed her. It was slow and soft and she melted into him. 

They broke apart, but barely. She could still feel his breath on her ear, warm and pleasant. 

“Honestly,” he whispered, as Betty’s hand drifted up to his bicep and the ridiculous fire hose tattoo, “the grease smell is kind of a turn-on.” 

Betty laughed.

  
  
  


(fin)

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments are very much appreciated!


End file.
